the Act of George the First, is "a congregation separating from the Established Church,"---a congregation of separatists.

With reference to what has been already advanced on another part of our subject, the reader of the same act is requested to observe by the way, that the king is authorized to appoint commissioners who (by sect. 30) are empowered only to administer the oaths in question; they are not required to tender them. But those who did not take them incurred a penalty of £500. Could these commissioners have refused to administer them to any one who claimed to take them? In case of such refusal, would the Court of King's Bench have hesitated to compel them by mandamus? And where is the distinction, in principle, between the law now referred to, and the eighth section of the Toleration Act?

In resuming our consideration of the supposed inconveniences that might be imputed to our construction of that important law, it is time to advert to that, which has been principally denounced, as being at once of the most enormous magnitude, and of the most malignant character. That the certificate, delivered to the person who has qualified at the Sessions, should protect him from serving in the militia, and from filling many civil offices, not less burdensome than useful, does appear to be a dangerous encouragement to the worst species of dishonesty: nor can any thing be more justly deprecated, than that thou

sands of able men should be tempted to deprive the country of their exertions, by basely resorting to blasphemy, profanation, and hypocrisy. In every mode of considering it, the evil would be unquestionably enormous, and its existence to a great extent has been pretty generally assumed.

In the late debate on Lord Sidmouth's bill, the Lord Chancellor, with much pleasantry, stated that he himself, when a young mau, had been advised to defraud the ballot, by giving sixpence for a preacher's certificate; and Lord Ellenborough, during the last term, while professing his regard for liberty of conscience, declared that it must not be made the pretext for those evasions, of which the consequences would undermine the liberty of the country.

Such powerful and popular reasons have repeatedly been urged as arguments for strictly watching the grant of certificates, for confining the privilege within its narrowest legal limits, for exerting every possible precaution to prevent its abuse, and for investing the Court, which issues such protections, with the fullest power of examining and ascertaining that he who applies for permission to qualify, answers that description which the statute intitles to such protection.

That such arguments, if just, are of great and extensive consequence, no man can deny they have for that reason been purposely reserved to this place; and because they naturally connect the first division of this Tract with the second.

Exemptions from penalties formed the first head of our enquiry; positive immunities the second, in the outset of which, it will not fail to be observed that the importance of these several operations of the Act to the body of Dissenters, is in the inverse proportion of their importance to the country at large. The country derives no advantage from the infliction of penalties, from which the exemption is every thing to the Dissenters: while the state has a direct interest in the service of all its population, and the Dissenters have comparatively none, in endeavouring to avoid their fair proportion of all the necesburdens.

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The exemptions are created by the second and eighth sections of the Toleration Act; the privileges are conferred by the eleventh: but the persons comprised in all of these are carefully and strongly distinguished. Under the second, all nonconformists, taking the oaths and subscribing the declaration, may with impunity transgress certain Statutes therein enumerated under the eighth, the more limited classes of persons in Holy Orders, or pretended Holy Orders, or pretending to Holy Orders, and teachers and preachers of congregations, may in like manner relieve themselves from other penalties: but in the eleventh section, the description is narrowed very considerably. Those only are excused from the common law obligation of executing public offices, who may fairly be regarded as actually

engaged in ministering to the spiritual wants of the sects to which they respectively belong, namely such teachers and preachers as are in Holy Orders, or pretended Holy Orders, and are also ministers, teachers, and preachers of congregations: and the 19th of George the third, before cited, extends exemption from the militia to the same persons, described almost in the same words*.

A broad line of distinction between those, who desire impunity for the offence of being Dissenters or Dissenting ministers, and those who claim valuable privileges in the latter character, is therefore, most clearly marked by the Toleration Act itself, and it is preserved in all the subsequent Statutes applicable to the same subject. The former are interested in being permitted to qualify at the Sessions, for the single purpose of avoiding punishment; the latter, would derive from their qualification a diminution of their share of the public burdens, which would consequently fall with increased pressure on their fellow-subjects. But it is important again to call the attention of the reader to this striking fact, that the Court of Sessions, though a necessary instru

* The statute 31 Geo. 3. c. 32. before cited respecting Roman Catholics, clearly expresses the same sense; by sect. 8 it is enacted "that every priest, or other person in holy orders, or pretended holy orders, being a Minister, Teacher, or Preacher of any congregation, &c. who shall take and subscribe the oaths, shall be exempted, &c."

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ment for perfecting the qualification, whether for the one purpose or the other, is neither required nor empowered to exercise any judicial authority, to institute any enquiry, or pronounce any sentence.

No penalties incurred for offences against the Conventicle Act and the Five-Mile Act, can be levied originally by the Court of Sessions; they are within the authority of a single justice; but if the defendant has qualified within the Toleration Act, that shall excuse him. In this case, his answering the description in the eighth clause, is his crime, his compliance with its demands, his justification. The offence it would be necessary to make out by testimony, the justification would be proved by production of the certificate given by the clerk of the peace. But against a person drawn for the militia no charge is made, no evidence preferred; his liability springs from the mere relation of a subject to the state, of a citizen to his country. The certificate must indeed be produced, if he wishes to escape service: but it is not here as in the other cases, of itself sufficient for his protection. As no conviction can be had, without proof of the crime committed, so no privilege can be allowed, without proof that the party belongs to the privileged order. But in neither case has the Court of Quarter Sessions any other duty to perform, than that of administering the oaths and the declaration, and seeing the articles subscribed; a duty, one would think,